ARSHDEEP ARSHI
“Mainu tan eh lal jhande ton nafrat hundi si (I used to hate this red flag).”
That was Gurwinder Singh, general secretary of the Zameen Prapti Sangharsh Committee (ZPSC), a movement for Dalit rights in Punjab, set up in 2014 by Dalits in 17 villages in the district of Sangrur.
“I used to think they just held protests, didn't do much,” said Singh, 40, a Dalit, like more than a third of Punjab—the highest proportion of any state—communities not just discriminated against but at the bottom of the social and economic ladder.
Singh, formerly an autorickshaw driver earning Rs 10,000 per month, said he previously believed that those who gathered Dalits under the ZPSC flag floated dreams that were too far-fetched.
“They would give people leaflets, which we would not understand, and it seemed they talked about things that were not achievable,” he said.
Those unachievable issues included equality and land rights, which haven’t been properly implemented even today, but can be achieved, he said, through struggle.
I was at the village of Bauran Khurd in Patialia district, recording a section of the ZPSC’s month-long Dalit mukti or freedom march, when Singh began to narrate the story of how he joined the ZPSC.
“I, like everyone else, used to think that it was politicians who would do any good for Dalits,” said Singh, a 10th-class dropout who now works full-time for the movement. “We used to vote for one party, then the other, in the hope that some party will do us good.”
When the ZPSC reached his village of Baura Kalan in Patiala district in 2016, Singh, like other Dalits, went to listen. He found their speeches different from the ones he had heard in political rallies.
“They were talking about the future for Dalits, something I found missing at political rallies,” he said. One of the important things that the ZPSC spoke about that appealed to Dalits was land rights.
“People in our village did not know that one-third of panchayati land (controlled by village councils) is reserved for us Dalits,” said Singh. “We did not know that there was an auction for this land.” That auction had been—and continues to be, in many cases—cornered by upper castes using Dalit proxies.
Singh was one of those who was inspired by the ZPSC and won the right to till panchayati land on lease. That is what they do now, with his wife working as a mate under the national make-work programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.
"We make about the same money as before,” said Singh. “But now we live a life of dignity.”
About eight years after they first heard of these land rights, many Dalits in Gurwinder’s village now till the land that was due to them by law and over which they eventually gained control.
It hasn’t been easy for the ZPSC, which has endured arrests and criminal cases, violence during bidding for Dalit and muted hostility from gurdwaras.
Singh now holds aloft proudly the red flag he once despised.
As I joined their freedom march for a day, I realised the difference between this one and the other protests and marches I had attended. The marchers were people who had no or little resources. Yet, they were determined to educate others about their rights.
In the four villages that I visited with them, it appeared there were Dalits willing to listen.
Leaders of the ZPSC told me how, in many villages, gurudwaras do not allow them to announce the march. But, they said, “boycotts (of Dalits, when they demand more wages) are announced from gurudwara speakers.”
In every village, the gatherings were held in Ravidas dharamshalas (rest houses run by Dalits), panchayat ghars or guest houses run by village councils. The day I walked with ZPSC marchers, the mattresses they carried—to seat people who came to listen, to sleep—had been ruined in the rain.
In most marches I’ve been to in Punjab, village folk receive the marchers and prepare langar, a collective term for food cooked by the community. In this case, most marchers did not have lunch until 4 pm. There was no waiting langar. Women marchers went to a gurudwara and prepared langar—lauki (bottle gourd) and chapati—for the others.
A friend of mine, a filmmaker called Randeep Maddoke, who has been documenting the Dalit struggle in Punjab’s Malwa region for 15 years, noticed the absence of a local langar, how even the march was a struggle.
Yet, they marched on with enthusiasm, ending each day with a collectively shouted, “Jaago (get up)!” A wake-up call to end the day.
You can see Arshdeep Arshi’s full video here.
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